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I earnestly urge everyone to watch Bill Moyers’ Journal for January 8, 2010: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01082010/watch2.html Moyers interviewed two writers of articles in Mother Jones January-February issue, David Corn and Kevin Drum, on the moral bankruptcy of Wall Street’s moguls. The American people have been duped into believing that when the bankers do well and when the Dow goes us, we are doing well, when we’re obviously not. They note that we exhibit the “Stockholm syndrome;” we identify with our oppressors, the morally corrupt bankers. The politicians have the bankers’ money, and the only way to counter the power of money is with votes, which requires a national movement. Our problem is how to get people riled about real issues like this one, instead of fake issues. Government is the only tool available to rein in excessive concentrations of private power, so the Government must not be demonized. We must insist that it serve ordinary Americans. If a bank is too big to fail, it’s too big, period, and should be broken up. Banks should be regulated to prevent their taking foolish risks with borrowed money. Banks should no longer be permitted to deal in securities; they should be required to maintain sufficient capital, so they won’t need to be bailed out by you and me. Fancy financial instrument like derivatives should be subject to public scrutiny on a stock exchange. Americans for Democratic Action needs to lead this uprising. But how do you make an arcane issue like this succinct, much less sexy? Who wants to listen to talk about derivatives and credit default swaps? I urge all ADA members to listen to Moyers, read Mother Jones, and then figure out how to dramatize these issues and build a movement.
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Now is the time for citizens to become indignant, rise up, and insist that President Obama and Congress rein in the bankers so they can’t kneecap us again. We can’t rely on Congress, since they’ve been bought by the financial services industry, in the words of Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL). And President Obama has surrounded himself with some of the same men who got us into this mess: Tim Geitner and Larry Summers.